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Millers' Guild

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MILLERS

The Guild of Millers and Millwrights are one of the most important guilds in western Lythia and have a defacto monopoly on the ownership of mills and milling. The masters millers are well respected and often wealthy members of their local communities, and have a good degree of influence with the Mangai due to their milling partnerships, strong guild and communal links and the influence that they have over the staple crops, spices, and mineral ores of Harn.

URBAN, RURAL & INDUSTRIAL MILLS

There are three types of guild franchise: urban, rural and industrial mills. Urban franchises are located in towns and villages, rural mills are found on the manorial fiefs, while the industrial mills are located near mines, saltpans or clothier guild operations. Generally, the distinction between franchises is not so much the process, but the milled products, although some industrial mills are unusual. A guild franchise will strictly control the products that a miller can mill, with strict controls on urban and industrial mills.

Urban Mills

Urban Mills are located in the chartered towns and larger villages of Harn. Given the size of the population centres, multiple franchises are likely, as each franchise is limited to either cereal milling and baking or spice supply and double mills are not allowed. Even with the restrictions, urban franchises tend to be more profitable than rural franchises, as the fief holder has to enforce quern licences on the local populace. This means that the volume of trade is significantly higher at urban franchises, and easily offsets the slightly higher rents the master has to pay to the fief holder.

Rural Mills

Rural mills are the manorial franchises of Harn, and about 40% of all manors have a mill. Unlike urban franchises, they are not limited to only one product, and double or even one or two triple mills are known. Indeed, a rural franchise may even be granted an industrial franchise as well. For this reason, rural mill franchises tend to be bigger operations than the urban mills, and the miller is often one of the principal freemen and employers on an estate. However, despite the range of industry, a rural franchise is not as profitable as an urban one as a rural franchise does not always benefit from quern licensing.

Industrial Mills

There are four types of industrial franchise on Harn – fulling, crushing mills, polishing and forge mills – and they are the partnership franchises of the Millers’ Guild. Of the four, fulling mills are by far the most common, and are run in partnership with the Clothiers Guild. The second most common are the crushing mills run in partnership with the Miners’ Guild. Lastly are the two quite rare polishing and forge mills that are run in partnership with the Weaponcrafter and Metalsmiths’ Guild respectively. As such, the industrial mill is almost always located at or near the establishment of the partner guild, with the partner guild being the senior partner. In fact, the industrial franchises are granted primarily so that the control of the milling technology remains with the Millers’ Guild.

MILLERS MEASURE’S

The guild has a standard set of dry measures for the grain and products that they mill. Different millers will favour using some weights and not others of the ones listed depending on the goods they mill and the quantities they tend to work in.

Note: A quarter of grain is enough to keep an adult alive for one year (8 bushels).

Also, these measures are dry volume measures, and not weights. The relative weights of a Bushel are:

THE MILLER AND THE MILLWRIGHT

Although there are many specialties within the Guild of Millers and Millwrights, the two main classifications are the Miller and the Millwright. About 90 per cent of the guild members are millers in some form while the remaining number are the millwrights, the milling engineers.

The Miller

The miller is the manager of the mill. He his responsible for the day-to-day operations, and is skilled in the techniques needed to produce a fine milled product, be it flour, malt or fulled cloth. The miller is knowledgeable of the products he produces, and is usually a dab-hand at the general maintenance the mill requires.

Once attaining the rank of master, a miller becomes quite settled, commonly remaining in the same community until his days are over. Indeed, since the mill is a major focus of the community, the miller becomes a central figure in the daily life of the settlement. He’ll know everyone and everyone’s business, or at least have a pretty good idea. The miller will generally be well respected and, so long as his product is decent enough, well liked – although some will likely be jealous of his relative wealth.

The Millwright

The Millwright is an important guild specialty. These are the mill engineers, and the true custodians of the milling technology. They are familiar with the construction, operation and maintenance of large machinery and will have some understanding of heavy equipment like drawbridges, derricks, gates and the like.

Unlike the master miller, the master millwright’s skills are widely sought and possessed by few, so the millwright’s life is much more travelled than even a journeyman miller. He will often move from community to community to oversee the building of a new mill or water-wheel here and the clearing of a mill race there. The recent introduction of forge mills, as well as the still fairly new fulling mills has meant that the millwright is still strongly in demand despite grain mills being almost ubiquitous.

Guild Relationships

While the two occupations – miller and millwright – are quite different in their day-to-day roles, they are both very much a part of the same guild. Progress to either master miller or master millwright starts out the same way – as an apprentice miller. Once learning the basics as an apprentice, the guild member becomes a journeyman and, depending on aptitude, can at that time look to be a miller, or to specialise as a millwright. Once a master, the miller or the millwright has an equal say in the operations of the guild, and both can rely on the guild’s full support and consideration.

Modifications to Character Generation

GMs and Players who wish to use or play a miller or millwright might wish to consider the following modifications to the Character Generation process:

OPTIONAL RULES: HARNMASTER, ANY EDITION Instead of Milling/4, Engineering/3, Agriculture/3 and Script, occupational skills are as follows: MILLER: Milling/4, Agriculture/3, Animalcraft/2, Rhetoric/4, Engineering/2, Woodcraft/3, Herblore/1, Script, plus one of: Brewing/2, Hidework/2, Perfumery/2, Mining/2 or Textilecraft/2 (depending on mill type) MILLWRIGHT: Engineering/3, Woodcraft/3, Milling/3, Masonry/2, Lockcraft/2, Agriculture/2, Animalcraft/2, Folklore/3, Script (This represents 7 skill levels above base per profession, in line with the likes of Innkeepers)

These changes give the miller and millwright a better representation of their skills. Millers will know something of the business of their customers – brewers, farmers, or clothiers – and also reflect their position at the heart of the community. Millwrights are less practiced in the day-to-day milling, but they are now more capable of carrying out the major repairs and fine maintenance that the mill requires – although not as expertly as a woodcrafter or mason.

Game Play

Depending on the type of game being run, millers and millwrights offer interesting character types to play, though they do face certain restrictions.

The millers’ career does look to a future as a master miller who settles in a single community. Adventuring would tend to be limited – especially during their busy harvest season – but would be possible in the early summer. However, the journeyman role would be quite suitable, as the journeyman moves from community to community to learn his trade, and new tales could unfold in each community. Millers who are no longer a part of the guild would still possess many useful skills upon which they could make a living, and their abilities at Rhetoric and Intrigue make them useful in trading campaigns and court politics.

Millwrights are eminently suitable for adventuring. While work will get in the way every now and then, their travelled lifestyle will fit with many parties. They also possess a number of useful skills for a group – like Lockcraft and Engineering – and all legitimately obtained.

MILLERS AND MILLWRIGHTS GUILD

The Millers and Millwrights are one of the most widespread and wealthiest guilds across civilised Harn and enjoy a de facto monopoly on the milling process. The guild maintains that position because of the technical nature of the mill, the fact that the guild itself owns all its mills - leasing them to the local bonded masters - and by having an agreement with the Mason’s Guild that only the Millers may buy millstones. They have also, through agreement with the ruling classes, managed to limit the competition of querns. The strong partnership links that they have with the Clothiers, Miners, Weaponcrafter and Metalworkers Guilds means that they also have a good deal of influence in the Halls of the Mangai. More, since they are not just urban but are spread across manorial settlements and mine-heads as well, their influence is widespread and at a grassroots level.

Like most guilds across Harn, Millers are not a single guild, but a union of the regional guilds each of which is organised along similar lines. At the basic level is the Shire or Provincial Guild, composed of all the Millers within the shire or province, and almost always centred on the local capital or moot. Thus, Kanday has seven guilds, based in Avertu, Chison, Imiden, Kedis, Quivum, Torthen and exceptionally, Aleath, while Rethem has only three guilds. Tharda, unusually has only one guild for the entire republic.

Although the number of masters on the guild council will vary from guild to guild, the Council of Masters for each guild are selected by a vote of the local masters, who then select a Guild master from amongst themselves. Once selected, a master remains on the council until he either resigns or is voted of the Council by the Council itself. This creates long tenures which helps to reinforce the strong relationships with shire or provincial overlords.

The Council meets regularly, usually once a month, to discuss new milling applications, finances, policy and hear disputes. Disputes are rare, and usually involve millers operating outside their licence or shoddy production quality. Disputes involving quern licences are taken to the moot or provincial court, assuming they cannot be sorted out before hand. The Guild master himself has many duties too. As well as levying fees and fines, he acts as the guild’s representative for disputes involving partnerships, travels as the guild’s representative to any special national or Harnic guild meeting and, finally, has the deciding vote in case of council deadlocks.

Interestingly, while the Millers have a large investment in mills, they usually do not have their own guildhall, and instead often share fine halls with other guilds or use those provided by the Mangai.

GUILD STRUCTURE Like most guilds, the Millers and Millwrights operate a hierarchical structure. At the top are the Guild master and the Council of Masters. Then, the Master Millers, who are bonded to the guild. Below them, the Journeymen, skilled millers who transfer from master to master to gain a broader knowledge of the millers’ products and, lastly, the lowly apprentices, who make up about three-quarters of the guild.

Apprentices Due to the local nature of the Millers and Millwrights Guild, admission is often a case of personal connections. While a given Mill does tend to employ a fair number of individuals, the control of the milling skills and the understanding of the mill workings are of paramount importance. Thus, mill apprentices are a usually close family relative, such as a son or daughter, nephew or niece. In some cases, a miller might agree to take on the son or daughter of a close friend in exchange for a fee or favour, but it is unheard of for a miller to apprentice someone he or she has not known for many years.

Once taken on, the apprentice is taught the millers’ skills. The study starts with the ancillary tasks such as baking, spice milling or tentering. As the apprentice gains in experience, they will be taught the basic controls of the mill, and learn about the grading process. Experienced apprentices will also be allowed to work the “front” of the mill and dealing with the mills clients.

During the harvest season, all hands turn to the task of threshing grain and the apprentices will spend long days hard at the task. If apprenticed at a mining mill, the apprentices swap harvest threshing for the almost yearround, backbreaking task of breaking up the large pieces of ore with mattocks. In all, apprentice labours are hard.

ADVENTURE IDEA An older local miller has managed to get his only child, a beautiful young daughter, apprenticed at a mill across the shire. He has done this to get her away from a young lad who desperately wants to marry her (and she him). Because the miller is too infirm to travel, the players have been hired to escort his daughter – there are brigands about after all – to the distant mill.

Journeymen After at least five years apprenticing, a qualified miller is given his journeyman papers. His master takes him to the next Council meeting for confirmation and to apply for a transfer. The Council then looks to send the journeyman to the same type of mill where the journeyman will work as an assistant miller. Then, after about a year, and each year thereafter, the miller moves to a different type of mill.

Usually, the family-based nature of the Guild and the fairly local nature of the transfers, means a journeyman will find that working conditions, while hard, are never really unpleasant. The exception is if a journeyman wishes to move to a different shire. While his request is usually granted with the agreement of the other Council, he will often face a few more years as a journeyman before advancement, and some concern as to why he wished to move shires in the first place. In some rare cases, such a move could even stop any further guild advancement at all.

Masters After at least nine years in the guild (more if the applicant changed shires) and with at least four Masters’ notarised approval, an application for Master can be submitted to the Guild Council. Master Millwrights then gain their papers pretty quickly. For Millers, the promotion application is then “Listed” in application order, and becomes effective once those on the list ahead of the applicant have been placed, and a mill franchise is available – wherever in the shire that might be! The process is however not strictly ordered, as more “generous” applicants are often moved up the List, and those applicants who would look to take over their family’s operation are granted precedence. Wherever the placing, the job is always as a bonded master, as no miller ever owns his own mill.

GUILD FRANCHISES Miller franchises are owned by the Millers’ Guild and operated by a bonded master. Obtaining a new franchise is hard as the guild will not allow non-members to organise the building of a new mill, and those who have tried have found that the Masons’ guild will not supply suitable millstones to non-guild members.

When an existing franchise becomes available through the death, retirement or disbarring of the existing master, the guild will offer the mill to the next deserving candidate on the Master’s List. Mostly, this means that the mill goes to the journeyman with the longest tenure on the list, but the son of the deceased miller, or a generous candidate may often jump the list, although the generosity required is rarely less than £20 and some gifts of £50 have failed to secure a posting if the mill site is lucrative.

The construction of new mills is also based on a List. To obtain a new mill, application is made to Council either by a noble or the Guild master of a partner guild. As for masters, mill applications are on a first-come-first served basis. However, since the List is private, and only seen by Council, there is a fair amount of abuse. Generally, Partnership applications are given the highest priority, and are built as soon as funds are available, as that benefits the Millers’ working relationships. Applications by a noble are often reassessed with higher ranking nobles enjoying a privileged assessment. Indeed, it is not unknown for a lesser noble’s application to languish until a suitable level of “generosity” is noted. Lastly, applications for additional rural mills where the 1800 acre limit rule (see regulations) is in breach are treated with some urgency as the guild effectively loses revenue until the additional mill is built.

ADVENTURE IDEA If the players are rebuilding a deserted manor, they may want to have a mill built. As well as arranging the building, they will also have to travel to the Council meetings to make representations to get on the list. Of course other lords, eager for their own mill, will try to thwart them, and the Council may require a bit of financial lubrication.

Although the List system is the basis for the guild decisions, the opportunity for graft is high. Indeed, gifts are the lifeblood of the Guild, and the profitability of the operation – a master miller will usually average over £4 profit per annum – means that there are always those who will pay up.

TOLLS, TAXES & REGULATIONS When a journeyman becomes a bonded master he takes on a significant burden of regulations, financial concerns and community responsibility. The burden is there because if the mill fails, the community as a whole suffers the loss.

Tolls The principle income for the mill is the toll or multure. The toll is the fee paid by the mill’s customers for the produce, be it grain, spice or crushed ore. Typically, the toll is 5 to 15% of the value – or if a value is unknown – volume of the milled goods. The most common practice though is for the miller to keep a tenth of what he mills

Toll collection is in kind, so if a miller mills flour, he will keep on average a tenth of the flour. However, in some instances the retention of the goods provides no value to the miller, such as when the goods worked are ores or fulled cloth. These goods are commonly produced as part of a partnership arrangement, so the miller will receive his payment when his partner finally sells the goods. Thus, when the iron mine sells a load of smelted iron, the miller, smelter and the miners will each receive a payment.

Depending on the goods kept as part of the toll, and the needs of the local community, the miller will sell on what he kept, or use it to produce other finished goods. Thus, the miller might sell the flour he produces, or he might use the flour to bake bread and then sell the bread. Therefore, the miller is captive to the whims of the market.

ADVENTURE IDEA A miller who runs an industrial mill franchise believes that the master miner is cheating him out of his rightful share of the income. He has hired the players to discretely investigate if his suspicions are correct. Little do the miller or players know that the miner has been paying an unscrupulous knight who has been threatening the miner’s family.

Millwrights do not receive a toll. Since the tasks they perform are more ad hoc, either the miller or the guild usually pays them a fee income per job. In some instances, they are hired by lords to fix drawbridges or the harbourmaster to fix a derrick, but the pay is still fee-based.

Licenses & Taxes Out of the profits that the miller gets from using the mill, he must pay a license fee or rental to the Miller’s guild, and taxes to his local lord.

The license fee for a mill is typically between £2 and £4 per annum, with most costing around £3 per annum. Moreover, the rental is due in cash not kind, although some exceptions are made for remote or small grain milling operations. To give the master miller the opportunity to raise the funds necessary to pay the rental, the payment for a given harvest season is due by the end of following spring.

Out of the rental, the miller will face taxes. On a rural milling operation, the taxes are set at a flat fee of £1 or 240d. The exception this is when the manorial estate is larger than the rural mills 1800 acre catchment limit. Normally, the landlord must apply for a second mill – from which he would receive a further 240d fee, but it is not always practicable. Instead, the tax on the single mill is levied as 240d for the first 1800 acres, and 1d for every 10 acres over that, up to a maximum of 160d.

For Urban and industrial mills franchises, the levy is 240d to the landlord – unless it is a Freetown. Urban mills, and those industrial mills in town, face a further business property tax of around 5-6% and must also pay their share of the town’s Aid levied by the King for defence.

Regulations Millers’ Guild regulations are quite strict on the technicalities of the mill operation, but less so on pricing and the day-to-day operations, much of which is dependant on local conditions.

The principal regulation of the guild is that of ownership of millstones. Millstones are defined as the stones used for the milling process and that are 2 feet or more in diameter. Quern-stones are those stones that are less than 2 feet in diameter. These sizes are enforced by both the Millers’ guild and the Masons’ guild. Only a master miller may order the purchase of a millstone, and he may only do so with the written consent of the Millers’ guild. Quern stones may be bought by anyone in possession of a valid Quern license, where quern licensing is in effect.

Additional regulations apply to the range of goods a miller may provide. Urban and Rural mills may apply to Council to mill any of the various cereal, nut and spice crops, but may only provide the goods if they are entitled to do so under their franchise agreement. For Rural mills, getting the franchise altered is often simply the case of requesting the “Right of Production” at an upcoming Council meeting. By their nature, Urban mills face much tighter controls on obtaining a new “Right of Production” and are usually limited to either cereals, or herbs, spices, nuts and oils. Industrial franchises are granted for the production of dyes, fulling, iron-working, crushing mineral ores, or, in some instances, large-scale herb, spice, nut and oil operations. Industrial franchises are also usually limited to one industry only and only one “Right of Production” is given – although in some rare instances, multiple Industrial franchises are permitted. Each industrial mill is operated in conjunction with a partner guild, for example, the Clothiers for dyes and fulling and Metalworkers for iron-working. Some Urban and Rural mills may obtain an Industrial franchise at more remote sites.

Regulations also apply to the quality of the goods milled by the miller. If a miller is found to be producing sub-standard output, he can easily lose his franchise. One of the most common issues occurs when the millstones are either very new or very old, and the size of the stone dust present in the milled goods is excessive.

Finally, rural mills are usually restricted to milling the produce for up to 1800 cleared acres only. If a manorial estate is larger, then application should be made for a second mill. In practice though, the franchise is often permitted to accept the grain from the additional acreage, but with a reduced tax payable to the landlord.

ADVENTURE IDEA A Shire Miller’s Guild has been beset with complaints of serious licence infractions and complaints of shoddy produce. The Council has therefore decided to carry out an exacting review of all the guild mill franchises. The players have been hired to escort the two master millers who are carrying out the inspections. Of course the disgruntled mill operators are not happy with the inspections, and violence and secrecy may well be rife.

SPICERS & QUERN LICENSES Three types of miller exist outside the normal guild structures, spicers, dyers, and hand-millers. To escape the restrictions of the Millers’ guild, they are limited to using hand querns only. Spicers provide milled spice and nuts for general consumption. Dyers provide dyes to the Clothier’s guild, whilst hand-millers provide ground cereals for private consumption and limited general distribution.

Spicers Spicers are the purveyors of ground spices and nuts on Harn. However, the dearth of native spices on Harn means that spices are generally the reserve of the nobility and the rich, and it is quite unheard of for a lowly serf to consider buying an exotic spice. Moreover, given the exacting knowledge required, spicers may not sell ground herbs to the general public unless they are also a member of the Apothecaries’ Guild, thus limiting the products that they can sell. For these reasons, spicers are typically located in urban centres or the larger central manorial settlements where they have access to a decent-sized market. Given the limitation on the sale of herbs, many spicers do try to become members of the Apothecaries Guild, although the rigours of guild entry mean that the majority just act as processors for local apothecaries.

Effectively, spicers run a small milling operation under license allowing them to mill spices and nuts for general consumption. The license allows the use of querns up to 2 feet in diameter, and they may only be powered by hand. The license also allows the spicer to operate as many querns as he needs, often four or five depending on the range of products milled, although a fee is usually charged per quern operated. As well as the hand-querns, many spicer’s use large mortars and pestles, which, incidentally, do not fall under the quern license.

A spicer’s main products the domestic Harn nuts and spices - black mustard, white mustard, caraway, chestnuts, hazelnuts and the recently introduced saffron (made from the saffron crocus) – with mustard making up about 80 per cent of the spices sold. However, trade with Lythia has meant that other spices, most notably black and white pepper, cinnamon, cumin, ginger and paprika are available in limited quantities, and it is these prized spices that can make a spicer quite wealthy.

ADVENTURE IDEA The player’s liege lord has heard of the new spice saffron that a few spicers in Thay have started to sell. He instructs the party to venture to the city to obtain some of this rare and exotic spice.

Dyers Dyes have long been produced on Harn. However, crushing or pressing the various plants and minerals that makes the majority of dyes means milling. Given the legal restrictions placed on the use of millstones and querns, it did not take long for a class of dye-makers to arise, although their skills range from the professional dyers to the part-time local manorial dyers who provide only simple dyes.

Generally, dyers are associates of the Clothier’s guild who have obtained a license to use a quern for the express purpose of crushing the various materials to obtain the oils, juices and powders necessary to make dyes. They usually work with the Guild as dye providers, but as they do not make any of the cloth that they dye, they are not required to be members of the Clothiers’ guild. In many cases, however, the dyers are members of the Guild so that they can also work with the dyed cloth when they are finished.

The large-scale professional dyers are fast becoming a skilled class. The restriction on the use of hand-querns has mean that the payment of the license fee has necessitated a focussed approach to generating revenue to pay the fees. To do that, the dyers have refined and developed the skills of dye making, and as a result, various new dyes and colours have been produced.

ADVENTURE IDEA The King wants a new cloak for his birthday, and he has instructed the local clothiers and dyers to come up with something magnificent. One dyer has hired the players to venture into the remotest part of the local mountains to obtain 40 pounds of the near legendary Blue Scale Lichen, from which he hopes to make a new exotic indigo dye. Gargun and employees of rival dye-makers will make the task that little bit harder.

The quern license has also assisted the Clothier’s Guild. The Guild has long suffered abuse of its guild monopoly, as many make their own clothes. However, the enforcement of the quern license has meant that the best dyes now come from a regulated source, and the clothiers have quickly moved to become the principal buyers. The dyers get a good price for their dyes, and the clothiers strengthen their monopoly on high quality clothing.

Hand-millers The third category of non-guild millers are the hand-millers, and they account for two-third of all milling on Harn, or on average about a fifth of all milling on manors with mills. Hand-millers are bound by the milling soke, and obtain a quern license to milling cereal for private or limited manorial consumption. There are often three or four handmillers on a manor with a mill, and a few more on estates without a local mill.

Hand-millers produce rough milled meal and flour, and the quality of their product is highly variable. They are only allowed to sell their produce to the public if there isn’t a mill within half a days walk, and even then they are only not supposed to sell more than a pint a day to any one household (about 1 pound of meal or 3/4 pound of flour).

The Quern License The local mill is a lucrative source of cash to the guild and to the local nobility. It becomes more profitable if there is no milling competition, and the mill carries out all milling on the estate. To restrict the competition, quern licensing has become common practice across civilised Harn, although the enforcement of licenses is highly variable.

A quern license grants a freeman who is not a member of the Millers’ Guild the right to own and use a hand-quern. Usually, the license restricts the use of that hand-quern to one purpose, for example cereal milling, and the license is forfeit if any other product is milled. The license is obtained by grant of the local lord upon a successful application, although success is far from guaranteed.

Quern licenses for cereals can be quite lucrative to the freeman. For example, a license to mill flour usually brings in between 20d to 30d in kind a month, so license fees tend to be quite high – often as much as 120d a year, although the 60d is more common. Licenses for dyers and spicers are higher still, and are between 130d to 180d per year.

Despite licensing, many querns operate illegally – mostly for cereal milling – and many cottars and serfs who hide small querns in covered pits in the floor of their homes. The penalties for illegal use can be quite high, although the common penalty is a 120d fine and confiscation of the quern. There is a tale of one Rethemi baron who had the floor of his great hall paved with the confiscated querns, and under each stone is the hand of the offending user.

ADVENTURE IDEA A ruthless knight’s mill is not as profitable as he would wish, and so he has hired the players to assist his yeomen in enforcing his new quern licence decree. He wants all his tenants to hand in their querns, but the locals are not too happy with this edict, and resistance is growing.

ASSOCIATED GUILDS AND CRAFTS The Millers’ Guild is central to the economies of civilized Harn. They are the middlemen for many of the key commodities for everyday life, and many other guild’s benefit significantly from the Millers’ trade, either as partners, suppliers or customers.

Clothiers Guild The Clothiers’ Guild is one of the largest guilds on Harn, and they have significant control over the production of cloth, fabric, and clothing. A master clothier is an expert tailor, weaver, glover and haberdasher, although there is a fair amount of specialisation.

A master clothier will work with the miller in many ways. The most common is the supply of various cloth sieves to dehusk meal, or reduce coarse grain to flour by sifting. The manufacture of the cloth sieves takes some skill to ensure that the weave of the cloth is fine enough to allow either the meal or flour through, but not the husk or milled grain, and such sieves can cost as much as 100d.

The second most important relationship between the miller and the clothier is in respect of fulling. Although it is possible to full wool cloth by hand, the process was dramatically improved with the introduction of fulling mills in 637 TR. Output of fulled wool, or felt, was increased eightfold, and within eighty years fulling mills have spread across Harn, with many old corn mills being converted or modified for the purpose. Many travellers across Harn will be familiar with the tentering frames that have now sprung up outside many mills upon which the new felt is stretched.

Lastly, the Clothiers’ Guild looks to the millers and dyers – and of course apothecaries - for the provision of fine dyes for use in colouring cloth. Although the apothecaries supply most of the dyes used, the new and unusual colours supplied by the dyers have found a ready and interested market, and many millers have a few querns set aside to prepare dye.

ADVENTURE IDEA A miller in Orbaal is reputed to make the finest flour in Harn. The players have been hired by the local miller to travel to Orbaal and find out how the miller makes such fine flour. It is thought it is because his sieve is so fine, and the players have been instructed to obtain the sieve at all costs. Of course the local Orbaalese would not be keen to see the quality of their flour affected, and will do what they can to stop the players. They might find the Orbaalese clothier might have more sieve cloth though.

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